The Choices You Make, Make You.
F
Growing up in humanity’s first extrasolar space colony means navigating a new world full of wonder, danger, and beauty. Explore the wilderness, study, fall in love, discover strange creatures, and deal with the consequences of your actions. Your choices will direc...
F
Growing up in humanity’s first extrasolar space colony means navigating a new world full of wonder, danger, and beauty. Explore the wilderness, study, fall in love, discover strange creatures, and deal with the consequences of your actions. Your choices will directly affect the lives of your friends and the fate of the colony. What kind of world will you help make? Will you survive to enjoy it? Why do you remember doing this before?
Growing Up on an Alien Planet
You have your whole life ahead of you. Will you spend it studying in school, or diving into the intriguing flora and fauna of this new world? Will you introduce space-age technology, or live in harmony with nature? Will you battle massive beasts, or nurture future generations? Realized in brilliant watercolor, the world of Vertumna is yours to explore.
Your Pasts and Your Futures Matter
Everything you learn and experience will make you and your colony stronger. You will thrive and you will make mistakes. These formative moments - your memories, decisions, and friendships - become collectible cards you carry with you. Each season brings new obstacles on Vertumna. The battle cards you earn from your experiences give you new options for overcoming these challenges, whether that is navigating relationships, learning new skills, exploring the planet, or staying alive. Every decision counts, during this life and the next.
How Many Lives Will YOU Live?
The cosmos is full of incredible mysteries, and your ability to remember your past lives is one of them. There are dozens of different endings to your story. How many lives will it take to save both your colony and the planet? Are you ready to wake up again?
Features:
Use memories of past lives to explore 800+ story events.
Discover more than 250 battle cards as you grow up on an alien planet.
Play your best hand in challenge encounters to ace your math test or escape from a wild snapbladder.
Make friends, fight with your parents, go on dates, fall in love, and save the colony.
29 wildly different endings based on the choices you make each month.
Pick from 25 colony jobs, like goofing off as a depot clerk, or surveying the valley.
Grow into 15 skills, including bravery, toughness, organization, and empathy.
Get to know 10 dateable characters, including dog-boys, aliens, hot politicians and stone cold killers.
Copyright Northway Games
System requirements
Minimum system requirements:
Recommended system requirements:
Recommended system requirements:
Why buy on GOG.COM?
DRM FREE. No activation or online connection required to play.
The art, the story, the characters... I bought it and was immediately hooked on it. I have work in a few hours and only just managed to yank myself away to power nap before i have to go in.
It has aspects of management simulators, deck building, and even roguelite story mechanics where going through things in past runs can be used to alter your current play through. The story is heart felt and intense at times. These writers do not pull any punches. It was all very motivating to do better and gratifying when I could change things in different runs. The music and art is gorgeous too, love all of it.
A truly unique and interesting gem of a game, I love it!
I Was A Teenage Exocolonist (IWATE from here on for brevity) is a deeply troubling game; for all the happy and heart-warming moments, there are nearly all underpinned by a lot of suffering, sacrifice, fanaticism, and an understanding that without special powers, things can go apocalyptically wrong, even for those with the best chances at a future... But that's alright, because most things are resolved with a card game which might top Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic's Pazaak.
In IWATE you play as Sol, a child exocolonist, from the age of 10 through 20. Each year is divided into seasons in which you can choose what activities to do to improve your social, intellectual, and physical skills. As mentioned, activities are successfully completed by playing a card game which provides you cards from our experiences in the world, e.g., you might remember a time you were scared and this can be used in social challenges.
You're not alone on this new colony, you will have plenty of fellow colonists, of differing ages, ideologies, and jobs, to interact and form relationships with. I can't speak highly enough about how well written the characters are as they grow-up, I even reached out to the game's writer, Sarah Northway, and they were nice enough to send me a response.
A typical playthrough is intentionally brief and multiple playthroughs are encouraged -- without wanting to say too much, in subsequent playthroughs you will have opportunities to identify events before they unfold and influence how they occur, if they occur at all.
The most important aspect of the game though is that which stuck with me after playing. There's a short list of games that I feel have genuinely challenged the way that I look at the world: (NieR:Automata and Suzerain, if you're interested), but IWATE has made me rethink looking at opportunities, relationships, and authority -- even after getting my 'perfect ending' it's sad to think how it faired compared to my first.
Highly recommended.
TLDR: What looks like a cozy time-waster is actually a surprisingly compelling RPG story with moments of emotional wallop.
Up top, lets just say that the content warning isn't kidding. Despite the pastel colors, cute art, and emphasis on the cast, this game goes surprisingly hard. And that makes it all the better. Don't play this if you just want some light romp, it tries to deal with stuff. It's not an emotional slog, but I was genuinely surprised by some moments in this game.
The loop is a lot like Persona. You have ten years of growth, with several months to a year. Each month you can engage in an activity which will boost your various stats and friendships. You also can chat to people and sometimes get bonuses and advance relationships. Some activities are around your little colony base, and others take place farther out (mechanically similar to P5's dungeons). And each year comes with certain events that take place at given calendar moments. This would be plenty, but you also need to work to help your colony and maybe solve the mystery of the planet.
It's pretty likely that your first run will be a struggle. Don't expect to get a golden ending the first time. IWATE has a mechanic that allows you to essentially "remember" prior runs and at various moments you can use this knowledge to change what came before.
Challenges are done via a set of collectible cards based on events that happen to you. If that sounds boring you can turn it off and let the RNG + your skills handle challenges. Some events/choices are gated by your skills.
I liked the game's story and it's characters. I also like how you gradually get something more like the full story of the colony...and the planet. I assume there is even more since like I said I've only fully done two plays so far. I look forward to finding out more. One playthru takes about 14-15 hours.
To be honest I didn't expect that I'd like but I really did! The story immediately grabbed me and I found myself playing for hours on end, struggling to leave to even eat dinner.
This game is waiting for a review. Take the first shot!
{{ item.rating }}
{{ item.percentage }}%
Awaiting more reviews
An error occurred. Please try again later.
Other ratings
Awaiting more reviews
Add a review
Edit a review
Your rating:
Stars and all fields are required
Not sure what to say? Start with this:
What kept you playing?
What kind of gamer would enjoy this?
Was the game fair, tough, or just right?
What’s one feature that really stood out?
Did the game run well on your setup?
Inappropriate content. Your reviews contain bad language.
Inappropriate content. Links are not allowed.
Inappropriate content. Content contains gibberish.
Review title is too short.
Review title is too long.
Review description is too short.
Review description is too long.
Not sure what to write?
You cannot save your review due to the following reasons:
You need to select star rating
You need to enter review title
You need to enter the content of your review
Show:
5 on page
15 on page
30 on page
60 on page
Order by:
Most helpful
Most positive
Most critical
Most recent
Filters:
No reviews matching your criteria
Written in
English
Deutsch
polski
français
русский
中文(简体)
Others
Written by
Verified ownersOthers
Added
Last 30 daysLast 90 daysLast 6 monthsWheneverAfter releaseDuring Early Access
Your review should focus on your in-game experience only. Let the game stand entirely on its own merits.
Avoid noise
To discuss topics such as news, pricing, or community, use our forums. To request new games and website or GOG GALAXY features, use the community wishlist. To get technical support for your game contact our support team.
Critique responsibly
To keep our review sections clean and helpful, we will remove any reviews that break these guidelines or our terms of use.
Ok, got it
GOG Patrons who helped preserve this game
{{controller.patronsCount}} GOG Patrons
Error loading patrons. Please refresh the page and try again.
